A jury has awarded the family of Zachary Duncan $14 million in their air
bag injury lawsuit against Hyundai. Duncan was just 16 when he sustained
a traumatic brain injury in a 2010 car crash.

According to the plaintiffs, the airbag didn’t activate when Duncan’s
2008 Tiburon went off a road and hit a tree. They believe the air bag
sensors were not properly placed in the car and therefore could not accurately
determine when a side air bag should deploy.

The sensors were under the driver’s seat. The auto product liability
lawsuit alleges that Hyundai knew there were risks to placing the sensors there.

Meantime, Hyundai contended that the vehicle’s air-bag system fulfilled
federal safety requirements and that even if the side air bag had deployed
this would not have protected Duncan from his injuries. The automaker
no longer makes the Tiburon. The plaintiffs’ legal team said that
vehicle’s models for 2003 to 2008 had all been linked to air-bag
sensor design problems.

Air Bag Air bag problems can prove fatal if this safety device does not go deploy
during a high-impact car crash or inflates when it shouldn’t. Faulty
air bag deployment can also lead to serious impact injuries to the body,
while potentially upping the chance of a car accident happening if one
has not already occurred.

Airbag Injuries Other airbag injuries may include neck injuries, abdominal injuries, chest
injuries, head injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and death. Victims
may have reason to pursue an air bag defect lawsuit against an automaker,
the air bag manufacturer, and others.

Air Bag Recalls In other recent air bag news, Suzuki is recalling 193,936 SUVs and autos
over a faulty air bag sense in the front passenger seat. The automaker
says the sensor mats, which are supposed to gauge the weight of passengers
and decide if an air bag should go off/not might stop working after numerous
uses. This could cause the air bag to deploy even if there is a small
person in the seat. Auto dealers are to replace the sensor mats free of charge.

The air bag recall news comes less than six months after Honda, Toyota,
Nissan and three other automakers issued their recalls. Close to 3.4 million
autos were involved over concerns that the air bag defect might cause
shrapnel to emit in the passenger compartment. Takata Corp. manufactured
all of the air bags.

The defect involved flawed inflator mechanisms that fail to send gas into
the air bag. Instead, plastic and metal parts could end up being emitted
from the safety device into the passenger areas.

Toyota recalled 1.7 million autos, Honda recalled 1.1 million vehicles,
and Nissan recalled 480,000 autos. The other three automakers were Nissan,
Mazda, and General Motors. You can read a blog postwe published earlier
this year about the mass recalls.